Labour's lax immigration policies have not served Britain well, writes Simon Heffer, but the welfare state has been more damaging.

By Simon HefferPublished: 7:00PM GMT 13 Nov 2009

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Recently, a Labour adviser was found to have backed unlimited immigration because it would "rub the noses" of the Right in diversity. This ignored the fact that members of the public – whatever their ethnic origins – have a right to expect government to be honest about the composition of their country and its culture. No one's nose should be "rubbed in" diversity until he or she has been consulted.

Gordon Brown's tacit admission on Thursday that lax immigration policies had not served Britain well was long overdue. This is not, as the Left well knows, a race issue. It is about whether our country, and especially the south-east of England, can physically cope with a rapidly expanding population. It is also about whether our economy needs unskilled workers from anywhere, when we have so many of our own who are idle. This brings us on to the main point about why Mr Brown said what he did: his party's fear of the BNP.

Whatever claims the BNP makes about its reach, it remains predominantly a party of the white working classes. It does not merely play to their anger over lack of opportunities, or over what they feel are the favours done by the Government to immigrants; it feeds them. Labour knows that, in the North especially, it may shed so many votes to the BNP that it loses seats to the Lib Dems or the Tories.

( correct here simon. When UKIP elect Lord Pearson, another Tory Toff, to replace Farage the Spiv who was repulsive to the Tory voters who UKIP now hope to capture, then we can expect to see a Lib-Lab Coalition government or a weak Tory government with a tiny minority at the next general election. )

However, Mr Brown is not being entirely honest either when he uses this no-longer-taboo subject to show the white working classes that he cares about them. Even if non-EU immigration were stopped tomorrow, and even if the countless thousands of illegal immigrants working here were at last deported by a Government that is remarkably loath to do so, what difference would it make for the white working classes?

( A vast difference - no more competition for jobs, no more downwards wage pressures, the return of Kin Based communities where local families can get council housing next to each other in their own communities and no longer rely on the welfare state to take care of them and their extended families. The primary driver for the destruction of the white working class was the destruction of white working class communities and the break up of extended kin based family communities - and immigration has increased this by taking up council housing. Families that live together take care of each other, and the welfare state doesnt have too )

To the decent majority who live respectably and are in work, probably none at all; and to the feckless minority whose benefit-fuelled existences have stripped them of all sense of responsibility, and whose dismal state education never remotely prepared them for one, none at all either.

( Here we go - yet again Heffer unleashes his facile and asinine stereotypes of class loathing. Pompous prick. The idea that those in work are the epitome of virtue is pathetic. Middle class junkies, drunks, and blue collar crime is rife. The one third of MP's who ripped the tax payer off were working. Why doesnt he attack the idle rich who are even more idle than the people on the dole he despises, those Tory Toffs like James Bethel and Zac Goldsmith who did fuck all for their wealth except find the egg after being ejaculated. The idle rich and their wealth are the primary parasites in our society, sucking up money that could be used to assist the poor and disabled )

The problem of the white working classes is only very marginally to do with immigrants. It starts with their parents, who lacked ambition, mired as they already were in the swamp of the welfare state.

( what a wanker. The idea the white working class is static is idiotic. The white middle class of today who worked their way into the middle class after the war and during Thatcherism will see their children sink back into the working class under political correctness, affirmative action and positive discrimination)

It grew worse with their schools, which (not least because of the lack of co-operation from their parents, but also because of the Marxist twaddle that dominates our low-achieving comprehensive school system) ended up being little more than ineffectual child-minding services. It then became terminal, with the welfare state kicking in on their behalves, as it did on their parents', removing from them incentive to work or to have any ambition.

( what a wanker. Millions escaped the white working and became middle class after the war because jobs existed and opportunities existed. They rose IN SPITE of their liberal left wing crap teaching. They rose because there were jobs they could take that paid well - and that was because the jobs existed and the population numbers meant that they could demand decent wages for those jobs. Immigration meant wages were cut at the same time as house prices rose and social housing was cut. This meant that they could not get jobs that paid their bill and were therefore forced to stay on welfare simply to survive. If your wages dont cover your outgoings like mortgage, rent, council tax, electric, water rates etc etc , then that is a not good incentive for going to work is it heffer you mug)

It is all very well to say that immigrants come here and take the low-paid jobs these people would do. But are we sure they are fit to do them? Are they sufficiently motivated? Do they bring the right work ethic? Are they willing to be responsible for their own lives? Are they able to be responsible for their own lives? I doubt it.

( THE ISSUE IS DOES THE PAY COVER THEIR OUTGOINGS YOU PRICK - if the wages you are paid do not cover your outgoings then why work ????? Deport millions of illegal immigrants, wages will rise and people will take those jobs )

Dave talked earlier this week about reducing the scope of the welfare state and, if he has the courage to follow through on his ideas, that would certainly provide some of the incentive needed for the white working classes to get off their collective bottom. But this has to be complemented by reversing Labour's failures in schools, and by in some way imposing on families the duty to bring up their children properly. With the right act of will, this is possible. It means taking the state out of people's lives quite dramatically. What will serve no purpose at all is blaming immigrants.

( What about the middle class raising their kids properly - those coke heads, piss heads, credit junkies and drunk drivers. What about the rich junkies and tory toffs. The schools need nationalising and the liberal leftist rubbish taught in them removed. The state needs to be NATIONALISED not turned into a wing of Oxfam. Blaming immigrants is blaming the true problem - a pity that Heffer is too stupid to see this )

The real Problem IS IMMIGRATION and also the fact that the Tories under Thatcher destroyed the BRITISH STATE and replaced it with the corporate state - we dont need the state to be cut back anymore and turned into Oxfam, we need the state NATIONALISED, the economy nationalised, society nationalised and the people nationalised.